Dr. Pamela Scheffler wins a Fulbright Award

Pamela Y. Scheffler, assistant professor at Hawaii Community College, has been awarded a Fulbright Scholar grant to conduct research at the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE) during the 2012-2013 academic year. Officials of the Department of State and the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board announced the grant to Scheffler, who will be studying under an Environmental Leadership grant from the Fulbright Nehru Program.

Scheffler, assistant professor of geography, biology, and environmental science, has taught at HCC since 2006. In addition to teaching a wide variety of liberal arts science courses such as Natural History of the Hawaiian Islands and Introduction to Environmental Science, she is with the Tropical Ecosystem and Agroforestry Management (TEAM) program, where she teaches courses such as Agroforestry and Forest Pest Management.

During her time at HCC, Scheffler has been working to increase international awareness among students, including developing a Study Abroad program for HCC students in Honduras. She led the first study abroad course earlier this summer.

During her time as a Fulbright scholar, Scheffler will conduct a nine-month study of biodiversity patterns in a range of agricultural and agroforestry systems in South India. She will be living in Banglaore, Karnataka with her husband and two children from August through May.

Scheffler said she is excited about the opportunity to work with novel agroforestry systems and bring this knowledge back home to her Hawaii students.